Could it be that what we really want, in order to rest, is respite from other people?

Seeing friends and family, chatting or drinking socially all come much lower down the list. This doesn’t mean that the respondents don’t like socialising, but that they don’t consider it to be particularly restful.

Interestingly, this applies both in the case of extroverts – sometimes defined as people who gain energy from being around others – and introverts, who find other people draining. Extroverts do place chatting and socialising a little higher up the chart, but still they are beaten by solitary activities.

It seems like we’re definitely in the ‘era of the introvert’…more an more people are writing about being introverted, describing their experiences, to much approval. Decades ago, it seemed like extroverts were in control, but now that has flipped, and factors such the information/knowledge-based economy and ‘intellectualism culture’ may be to blame, as I explain in Introverts Rule the World.

This ties with ‘shared narratives’, as all introverts, regardless of their politics, are unified in their dislike of ‘small talk’ and other vapid, atavistic social rituals that we voluntarily impose on each other and ourselves, which could explain why the article above went viral. We carry out these motions not because we derive pleasure from them, but because we have become so accustomed to doing them that to refuse is inconceivable. One such ritual is voting and the ‘democratic process’, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see millennials losing faith in democracy. Politicians promise ‘more freedom’ in exchange for your vote, but that results in diddly-squat. If you vote, it’s because the candidates embodies values you agree with, not because you expect a specific outcome or result.

This is also related to the decline of ‘careerism’. Careerism, which thrived in the 80′s and 90′s, wasn’t about creating economic value; rather, it was about sycophantism, of millions of people ‘showing up’ and carrying out these ritualistic motions, everyday exchanging their livelihoods for steady remittances needed to ‘keep up with the Joneses’. As I wrote in Millennials and Misconceptions, millennials are abandoning careerism in droves, choosing introspection, MGTOW, ‘being alone’, and introversion, rather than gregariousness and ‘office politics’. But it’s not laziness, as many wrongly assume. When millennials choose to work, they do so to maximize economic value and their own productivity, meaning that they prefer not to dither with ‘small talk’ and ‘office politics’, and they want to work on their own terms, preferring autonomy instead of sucking up to a boss, who is is often overpaid relative to the economic value he or she produces. This is why personal finance (budgeting, investing, etc.) is so important to millennials, because financial independence and self-sufficiency is necessary to have freedom, or more specifically, autonomy, instead of careerism. It doesn’t mean having money for the sake of consumption, but money for autonomy.